You do realize that lemmy contains very many users, many of whom disagree on any number of things. You are randomly assigning the opinions of lemmy’s pirate users to a random commenter without evidence that they actually hold those opinions, because it’d be convenient for you if they’re contradicting themself in any way (though the degree to which that would be a contradiction is also arguable). It’s just a way of constructing a strawman instead of engaging with your interlocutor’s actual words.

Also, part of the problem is that these LLMs very often do directly copy and spit out articles and random forum posts and etc word-for-word verbatim, or it’ll do something that’s the equivalent of a plagiarist who swaps a few words around in a sad attempt to not get caught. It becomes especially likely depending on how specific the search is, like if you look for a niche topic hardly anyone has written extensively on or for the solution to an esoteric problem that maybe just one person on a forum somewhere found an answer to. It also typically does not even give credit or link to its sources.

Plus, copyright law, if it exists, must apply to everyone, including major coporations. That’s a separate issue than whether or not copyright law needs reform (it obviously does). If you wanna abolish copyright, fine, ok, get it abolished through the government. But while copyright law is still the law, I’m not ozk with giving magacorps a pass to break it legally, especially when they’re more than happy to sue random, harmless individuals for violating their own copyrights. They want the law not to apply to them because they’re rich.

The argument they’re making is just ridiculous on its face when you compare it to other crimes. If AI should be allowed to violate copyright because otherwise it can’t exist as it is, then anyone should be able to violate copyright because otherwise their cool projects won’t be able to exist. And I should be able to rob a bank because otherwise I won’t have all that money. You should be able to commit murder because otherwise your annoying coworker will keep bugging you. She should be able to walk out of a store with an iPhone without paying for it because otherwise she won’t have an iPhone. Etc. It’s an argument that says the criminal’s motivations are legal justification for the crime. “You should let me legally do the thing because otherwise I can’t do the thing” is just not a convincing argument in my book.

Maybe one day all the human Alexas can have their name back. That would be nice.

Or they’re working class or buried in medical bills and can’t afford to be spending money on things like search engines that have a free alternative, even if it is worse.

I’m not actually convinced the alternatives are any better here, anyway.

It bothers me that they all look like they’re in their teens or 20s, when a male wizard would inevitbly be shown as anywhere from middle aged to Gandalf.

I bet it just always makes women young in every context.

Anyway most of them look like they’re from an old 3D Japanese RPG or CG anime. Round face with pointy chin, plastic-y smooth skin.

I’ll note that anime and Asian RPG characters often have a light skin tone (another can of worms there) that can cause foreign viewers to perceive them as white even while Japanese viewers perceive them as asian. Animation and similarly stylized art involves a level of abstraction and cultural interpretation that might not be there (at least not in exactly the same way) if we were talking about race (or gender, or whatever else) with regards to more realistic art.

Edit: this also reminds me of Disney’s notorious “same face, same profile” problem with female characters in their 3D animated films. Male characters can be any of a wild variety of shapes, but a Disney princess essentially round faced with huge eyes and slim. Even just looking at different slim, round-ish faced male characters, I think you’ll find more variety in their portrayals within that group than amongst the Disney princess group.

For those interested in this topic, I recommend PhilosophyTube’s videos, particularly this one: I Emailed My Doctor 133 Times: The Crisis In the British Healthcare System

Also… What the heck is a bioethicist? That sounds like maybe someone involved in advising corporations on ethics, not someone I’d ever expect to see involved in private medical care. Regular doctors and nurses and etc are already required to study and practice ethical medicine.

I’d also like the point out that one can go get their tongue cut in half, or their leg bones lengthened, or get hormone treatment for balding or for menopause, or get a nose job, or surgery to make their boobs bigger or smaller, all without anything like what trans people are forced to go through for the most basic of things.

Even for someone who believes that the gender assigned at birth is the “real” one, or who dislikes or feels weirded out by trans people in general, I don’t see how one could justify imposing so many more restrictions on one group of people who want or need to modify their bodies than are imposed on any other group that seeks similar medical care.

Even if we do just talk about children, the disparity doesn’t make sense. Like, hormone blockers like those prescribed to trans children have been routinely and safely prescribed to cis children, in cases such as to delay early onset puberty (which, iirc but correct me if I’m wrong, is mostly only an issue because of the social consequences surrounding it), for decades. And in many of the new wave of anti-trans bills that ban hormone blockers to delay puberty for trans children, they specifically leave a cut out for cis children to still receive hormone blockers without issue. Because they don’t really believe delaying puberty is unsafe, that’s never been the point.

And that’s not even getting into comparisons with other major medical decisions made by parents and doctors, sometimes even without the consent of the children (let alone the vehemently expressed wish for treatment like trans children), like circumcision, or weight loss treatments or surgeries, or other cosmetic treatments, or even the forced surgeries and hormone treatments that have been routinely done on intersex children (largely the same treatments as a trans person would seek, but forced, to make a person look unambiguously like whichever sex the parents choose for them). If the people pushing these anti-trans bills really cared about children and parents and doctors making medical decisions with big consequences and risking regret, they should be talking about a whole lot of other things - things much less stringently regulated - besides trans healthcare. But nope, crickets.